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Croatian Holiday Nut Roll | Povatica

It’s all in the wrist. The secret to making good Povatica, that is. This famous Croatian Holiday Nut Roll gives its maker a workout. You will be rolling, and pulling, and stretching the dough until it is thin, thin, thin.

We’re talkin’ paper thin, like a curtain of dough, blowing in the breeze.

I bet Croatian grandmother’s everywhere compete for the most delicate, thin walled Povatica. (Note this bread is also common- under various names- in other areas, such as Poland, Austria, etc)

Unlike cinnamon buns, which ooze fluffy bready goodness as much as anything else, Povatica is all about showing off the filling, framed by delicate layers of bread.

And Povatica is worth the effort.

Here’s one Croatian’s description of good Povatica:

I’ve tasted many different versions of Povatica. Some are made with honey and tend to be heavy, others are too doughy. My grandmother’s version is, to me, the perfect balance of dough and filling. Made properly (with dough stretched thin), it is delectable. My mother put together the recipe while watching my grandmother make the bread, as she cooked without recipes. I’ve traveled in Yugoslavia and seen a similar version of this bread in Slovenia. It was called “Potica”. My grandparents came to Kansas City, KS, from a village in Croatia in the early part of the twentieth century. Grandma made this rich, rolled nut bread for holidays and other special days. She was a master at stretching the dough thin. For
weddings, women in the Croation community of Strawberry Hill gathered together and made many loaves of Povatica for the two-day celebration.

M. Matson in the “The Ellis Island Immigrant Cookbook”

The easiest way to roll dough: When you roll out the dough, make sure you take short breaks when it starts to spring back, like a rubber band. Just 30 seconds – a minute gives the gluten in the dough time to relax and will minimize your struggles. Since this recipe makes 2 loaves, you’ll be able to alternate rolling and the timing will work out perfectly.

Please note the next time I make this (and, yes, there will be a next time – perhaps for Christmas morning), I will work to get the dough twice as thin as you see here.

1. In the bowl of a standing mixer, combine milk and yeast. Let sit and froth up for about 10 minutes.

Add in sugar…

Eggs and softened butter. Both the eggs ad the butter help make this bread rich, and tender – like brioche.

A bit of salt gives dimension. Salt is flavor jewelery. Without it, everything is okay. But with it? Stunning!

Add in flour and mix/beat with the dough hook for about 10 minutes. The dough should be soft and pull cleanly away from the sides of the bowl. It should not be sticky, nor dry.

Here is mine after mixing.

Let it rise for 1.5 hours. Be sure to cover the dough, so it won’t dry out. I left mine in the mixing bowl and draped a towel over it.

Meanwhile for the filling:

Pull out your food processor and add in the walnuts,

brown sugar (is there anything better in this world?)

and a dab of butter and scoop of cinnamon. Oh cinnamon… you are like the holiday messenger, coming to tell me it’s time to celebrate!

Splash in a drizzle of vanilla extract. Did you know that you can wear vanilla extract like perfume? My mom always dabs a little on her wrists when she bakes. I do the same because I value tradition and smelling like cookies.

I gave everything a quick pulse and then realized – oops, need a little milk. Just enough to get this paste loose for spreading. 1/8 cup should be plenty.

Here’s my ooey gooey ball of sweet, scrumptious filling… someone pick my husband up off the floor. He just fainted.

Meanwhile, our dough has been very busy. Look how beautiful! The warm milk really helps the yeast get going faster.

Divide the dough into 2 evenly sized sections…

And roll them out. I am putting this in loaf pans, so the dough should be roughly the width of a loaf pan (I made mine a little too big which caused buckling in one loaf pan). Anyway, just as thin as you can! Alas, a Croatian grandmother, I am not.

The raisins really dismayed Mr. Picky but I remained steadfast and strong.

Once tightly rolled, pinch the ends so no filling oozes out.

And place in an oiled loaf pan.

Let rest another thirty minutes to an hour. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 350F

Bake 35-40 minutes, or until golden brown. While still warm, spread with butter.

You heard me.

It gives the dry crust an alluring sheen, even once cool.

Oh heavens.

Let cool 2 hours before slicing.

Just kidding.

But try to wait at least 30 minutes, or the filling will fall apart on you.

Croatian Holiday Nut Roll | Povatica

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It’s all in the wrist. The secret to making good Povatica, that is. This famous Croatian Holiday Nut Roll gives its maker a workout. You will be rolling, and pulling, and stretching the dough until it is thin, thin, thin Unlike cinnamon buns, which ooze fluffy bready goodness as much as anything else, Povatica is all about showing off the filling, framed by delicate layers of bread.

It’s all in the wrist. The secret to making good Povatica, that is. This famous Croatian Holiday Nut Roll gives its maker a workout. You will be rolling, and pulling, and stretching the dough until it is thin, thin, thin Unlike cinnamon buns, which ooze fluffy bready goodness as much as anything else, Povatica is all about showing off the filling, framed by delicate layers of bread.

Ha! Astrid, I heard you could make this with poppy seeds instead, but I don’t have the quantities for that. As for no walnuts… it would probably be more like a cinnamon roll… you’d need more sugar and probably more butter. Good luck… the bread would be good even on its own btw. Sort of brioche-like.

Oh man, this looks delicious !! I think I’ve eaten something similar in Slovakia with poppy seeds, but a thicker dough – but it was absolutely delicious ! Now that I see the recipe I think it’s not that big a deal and I can try it ! Thank you !

I stumbled upon this recipe through one of the food photography sites. Thank you so much for providing this recipe! I like in Kansas City, and at one point I lived in the Strawberry Hill area. Povatica is my favorite dessert, and Strawberry Hill’s is the best. I’ve been vegan for a year now though, so I can’t eat it. Strawberry Hill is being sold at ALL the grocery stores and farmer’s markets because of the time of year. Now I can make it, and stop torturing myself!

I could be wrong, but I’ve heard that making a single loaf of bread takes up several tables because they roll their dough so thin.

I’ve been making this dessert at Christmas for years. I stumbled upon a recipe in a magazine in the mid 1970’s. I roll it a lot thinner than shown on this site and my recipe makes two large breads or three smaller ones. I mold my filled dough into snail-like shapes and bake them.

My son doesn’t like walnuts, so I use pecans, which makes for a sweeter bread. Sometimes I add golden raisins and sometimes I don’t, it’s good either way. I like the pecans so well I never bake any other filling, but sometime I’m going to bake one with poppyseed or levkar (prune) filling.

My husband is half Croatian and half Serbian, so this bread is right down his alley. When my in-laws were still living, I would bring them a loaf and they seemed to like it a lot.

Hi Sasha, I have made it to Croatia on my culinary journey, and since I make a dish (not a meal) for each country, I have decided to make Povatica. Since we will have cousins visiting from California for Orthodox Easter (April 15, 2012) this will make a wonderful breakfast treat with our colored eggs!

Baking this, but used what we had on hand for the filling (mixed nuts, no peanuts). Filling was delicious, but not spreadable even after the addition of 5 Tbs of milk. So, we rolled it out between parchment and Saran, transferred the filling to the rolled out dough, and had great success! Just an idea if anyone wanted to fill with a nut with a lower oil content, or just generally finding the filling difficult to spread.

Strawberry Hill in KC! Enough said. The best Povatica in the world. My dad grew up in KCKS and ran with the Hunkies(as they called them) and still has friends in Strawberry Hill. He buys an annual loaf for Christmas from someone in SH every year. I don’t know anyone that has tried it that doesn’t absolutely crave it once tasted.

Have been making poppy seed rolls for most of my life. But not walnut rolls. I made this walnut mixture and way too sweet so I would recommend to start out in small quantities and then add to taste. However, this is a nice spreadable yummy recipe otherwise and will continue to use it. Thanks.

Thank you for this 🙂 I had a go at veganizing this today and my other half has already eaten half of a loaf within 5 mins! He wants to take the other half to his workplace for his colleagues to enjoy too. I substituted macadamia milk for the milk, egg replacement powder for the eggs and vegan butter for the regular butter. Delicious!

Has anyone else had issue with amount of filling? Maybe I got the dough very thin, because I had nowhere near enough filling for the two loaves. Also, I made the dough itself in my bread machine and it was super easy to roll out very thin. It’s baking now. Can’t wait to try it! 🙂

My Grandmother from Austria/Hungary made this in Salida, Colorado until her death in 1965. Called it nutspititzen (SP). My mom made it also till in the 1990s she died in 2003. Their was also applestrudle my Grandma made. Same dough rolled pulled thin then layered with apples, cinnamon, brown sugar, raisons. With ice cream, vanilla of course it was the bomb.

I’m wanting to make vanilin kiflice. But I’m having trouble figuring out how to get measurements for ingredients for United states standards. My recipe I have is in gr. And a bag of vanilla sugar. I want to swap the bag of vanilla sugar and use almond extract. How many teaspoons or tablespoons would that require? Can you help me?

Thank you so much for the recipe. I have family that were from Croatia and moved to Kansas City, Kansas Strawberry Hill and raised their 15 children there. My mother-in-law and the ladies from church made this bread . I somehow lost the recipe and wanted to make this for my adult son’s for Christmas.
The recipe sound the same as her’s, however the ladies didn’t use raisins.

Just the mention of Strawerry Hill, KCKS, Povatica brings nostalgic tears! I taught at St. John the Baptist Catholic School in 1968-69 and One of our Sister’s mom’s brought us povatica every Easter. It is amazing with butter and thinly sliced ham for a ceebratory breakfast!! Special memories, thank you!